sport news Tottenham 0-2 Liverpool: Mo Salah penalty helps the Reds secure their SIXTH ...

On the day his side left Merseyside to fly to Madrid, Jurgen Klopp recorded a message to a dying man on the other side of the world. The Liverpool manager talked about life and death and the beauty of belonging to the community of players and supporters that bonds a club together and gives it its identity.

'The only thing we would try to do the whole year,' Klopp said to Liverpool fan Dave Evans as he stared into the camera, 'is to give people some hope. Some joy. Some good moments to remember. We share these moments…We share these experiences. That makes us actually friends.'

Liverpool are a club whose recent history is forged in pain and fuelled by emotional energy and, fired by that hope and that joy of which Klopp had spoken, tens of thousands of their supporters had streamed out of the squares and the bars of the Spanish capital where they had congregated all day and made their way to the Wanda Metropolitano where it squats on the outskirts of the city. 

There in the sultry heat of the evening, a second minute penalty from Mohamed Salah and a late strike from substitute Divock Origi delivered a 2-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur and the joy the supporters craved. It also rid Klopp of the reputation of the man who always loses finals. 

The victory in the first all-English Champions League Final since 2008 re-established their team as one of Europe's elite and banished the pain of their defeat in the titanic Premier League battle with Manchester City when they won 97 points and still it was not enough. They had not hidden from that pain. They had held it close and embraced it and used it.

The match was not a classic. In fact, it was as if both teams had spent all their energy and their taste for drama in their semi-final miracle comebacks against Barcelona and Ajax.  

It almost felt on Saturday night as if Liverpool won the trophy that night at Anfield when they scored four unanswered goals and humbled Lionel Messi and his teammates. This was the confirmation of what they earned that magical evening.

This was not a night to marvel at the football but to revel in the history. This was Liverpool's sixth triumph in the European Cup and Champions League, a record that lifts them above Bayern Munich and Barcelona and behind only AC Milan and Real Madrid in the history of the world's leading club competition. What a tribute it was to a team's ability to bounce back.

It was only 12 months ago after all, when they were leaving the pitch at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev, desolate having lost to Madrid in the final, haunted by nightmarish images of two macabre bloopers from their goalkeeper, Loris Karius, and a stunning overhead kick from Gareth Bale. They have lived through this season determined to purge themselves of that disappointment.

So what have you actually won Jurgen Klopp? No longer can the accusation that the German is a nearly man be levelled at him. Never again. Saturday night fixed that. He had lost six finals in succession before Saturday night – three as the boss of Borussia Dortmund and three as the manager of Liverpool – but he has won the biggest prize of all now. His image will be paraded on the Kop among the icons of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Rafa Benitez. He is one of the great ones now.

'I feel mostly relief,' he said after the match. 'Mainly for my family, actually. The last times we were always on holiday with a silver medal which didn't feel too good. Tonight was so emotional, it was so big. It means so much to us. I know how Tottenham feel better than anyone else in the world.